Let’s say you are sitting in a restaurant, waiting for the blind date your coworker arranged to find you in the crowded room. How do you think your coworker described you to this person? Now consider how you would describe yourself to this new person if you’d talked on the phone before the date. What identifiable characteristics would you mention as a shorthand way for your date to know a bit about you so he or she could recognize you in the restaurant?

Chances are good that you’d mention your race, something about how you express your gender (such as the way you dress), how old you are, and maybe what you do for a living. You might also mention how tall you are if you are remarkably tall or short, and—if you’re candid—you might mention something about your build (heavyset, petite, in between). Overall, you’d give cues to your blind date about characteristics that are distinctive, or stand out, about you. Interestingly, what you tell someone about yourself says a lot about what you think about yourself. Just as we stereotype others, we also stereotype ourselves.

Stereotype threat describes the degree to which we internally agree with the generally negative stereotyped perceptions of our groups. Along with that comes a fear of being judged when we are identified with the negative connotations of that group. This can happen when we are a minority in a situation. For instance, an older worker applying for a job in a predominately millennial-age workforce may assume the interviewer thinks he is out of touch with current trends. What creates a stereotype threat is not whether this worker is or is not up to date with trends, but whether he internally agrees that older workers (the group he identifies with) are out of date (the stereotype).

Stereotype threat has serious implications for the workplace. Employees who feel it may have lower performance, lower satisfaction, negative job attitudes, decreased engagement, decreased motivation, higher absenteeism, more health issues, and higher turnover intentions.9 Thankfully, this is something we can combat in the workplace by treating employees as individuals, and not highlighting group differences. The following organizational changes can be successful in reducing stereotype threat: increasing awareness of how stereotypes may be perpetuated; reducing differential and preferential treatment through objective assessments; banning stereotyped practices and messages; confronting even small, seemingly innocuous aggressions against minority groups and adopting transparent practices that signal the value of all employees.10

To review, rather than looking at individual characteristics, unfair discrimination assumes everyone in a group is the same. This discrimination is often very harmful for employees, as we’ve just discussed, and for organizations.

Exhibit 2-1 provides definitions and examples of some forms of discrimination in organizations. Although many are prohibited by law and therefore are not a part of organizations’ official policies, the practices persist. Tens of thousands of cases of employment discrimination are documented every year, and many more go unreported. Since discrimination has increasingly come under both legal scrutiny and social disapproval, most overt forms have faded, which may have resulted in an increase in more covert forms like incivility or exclusion, especially when leaders look the other way.11

As you can see, discrimination can occur in many ways, and its effects can vary depending on organizational context and the personal biases of employees. Some forms of discrimination like exclusion or incivility are especially hard to root out since they may occur simply because the actor isn’t aware of the effects of his or her actions. Like stereotype threat, actual discrimination can lead to increased negative consequences for employers, including reduced productivity and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB; see Chapter 1), more conflict, increased turnover, and even increased risk-taking behavior.12 Unfair discrimination also leaves qualified job candidates out of initial hiring and promotions. Thus, even if an employment discrimination lawsuit is never filed, a strong business case can be made for aggressively working to eliminate unfair discrimination.

Whether it is overt or covert, intentional or unintentional, discrimination is one of the primary factors that prevents diversity. On the other hand, recognizing diversity opportunities can lead to an effective diversity management program and ultimately to a more successful organization. Diversity is a broad term, and the phrase workplace diversity can refer to any characteristic that makes people different from one another. The following section covers some important surface-level characteristics that differentiate members of the workforce.